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Have you ever bought TV episodes on iTunes? Well I have. As it turns out, there is some money to be saved! Usually, each TV episode costs $1.99 on iTunes. If you buy Pepsi products, you might notice little numbers printed to the underside of each bottle-cap. You can actually go online at pepsistuff.com and enter the codes on the bottle caps in order to get Pepsi points. For every 12 Pepsi points you enter into the website, you can actually download a free TV episode from any popular show of your choice from Amazon.com. You can also buy music, and other things from the website, but downloading TV shows for 12 Pepsi points each is the best deal, in my opinion.

Let’s take a quick look at how much money this could save you. Suppose you buy 2, 6 packs of 24 Fl. Oz. bottles of Pepsi products for five dollars. If you choose to take the time to enter the codes online, you can download a TV show episode you would otherwise have to pay $1.99 for. So in total, you’re paying $5 and receiving $6.99 worth of merchandise, which actually turns out to be a great deal, especially if you drink Pepsi products. That’s a lot of pennies to be saved!

Chances are you’ve seen an Energizer and Duracell battery commercial at least once in your lifetime. If should come as no surprise that those advertisements cost quite a lot of money. For example, a single campaign for Copper-top Duracell batteries cost the company an estimated 100 million dollars. That is for just for one campaign advertising a specific product from a single company! Where do big batteries companies get this kind of cash? The answer is your wallet!

When you are in a store selling various brands of batteries, Duracell and Energizer batteries are almost always more expensive! Now, it may be true that the batteries last slightly longer than the cheaper brands, but this simply isn’t worth the extra cost. For example, a generic Safeway battery may be half the cost of a corresponding Duracell battery, while the Duracell battery may only last 5% longer. To put it quite simply, it’s always worth it to buy the cheapest batteries you can find, simply because you get far more energy for your dollar.

It’s worth mentioning that if you buy batteries in sufficient bulk, the cost of the batteries will be significantly reduced. For example, if you shop at Costco, you can buy a large quantity of batteries for a fairly cheap price. Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend buying a package of 30 or more batteries, even if you apparently saved money. By the time you would ever need to use all the batteries, they would be long-since expired. If you use a large quantity of batteries, the cheapest option for you may be to start using devices which don’t require batteries, or use rechargeable batteries.

A common theme to this site is how to save a couple pennies here and there. Sometimes, the best way to save some pennies is to avoid wasting them in the first place. That’s why I’m going to write some articles focusing on a couple non-obvious internet and mail scams, and how they work. A couple years ago, I was even scammed out of thirty dollars online! Anyone is susceptible to internet scams, regardless of where you live, or what your level of education is.

A common scam is known as the lottery scam. Have you ever received an email or letter in the mail claiming you’ve just won a lottery you’ve never entered? Guess what, it’s a scam! Often, these ‘lotteries’ are from foreign addresses, which should be sending up a red flag indicating something is wrong. Because the emails and letters promise to send you money in the form of a check, it’s hard to imagine how these scams could cost you any money.

Here’s how it works:

The fake lottery sends you a check, but also demand a small fee for taxes or other bogus fees.

After you cash or deposit the check into your bank, the check will appear to have cleared. The bank will release the funds to you.

You happily send off the small required tax or processing fees to the fake lottery company.

Up to a couple weeks later, your bank will figure out that the check was, in fact, fake.

The bank will immediately take out the appropriate funds from your bank. If you don’t have enough money in your account, your account will be overdrawn, resulting in large fees.

Your bank may also charge you fees for depositing a fake check

In summary, if you receive a check from a lottery you never entered, chances are overwhelming that it is scam. One thing to keep in mind is that internet scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. They make their livings scamming innocent victims, and to do it more effectively, they have fax machines, telephone numbers, and mailboxes. Don’t be fooled by internet lottery scams. These scams may appear to be legitimate, but they can cost you thousands of dollars and cause you lots of disappointment

If you have a water heater in your apartment or home, chances are great that you are spending hundreds each year just for hot water. Whether you use electric or gas heaters, the cost to you can be very high. Fortunately, there are a couple simple steps that may be taken to reduce your energy bills.

First and foremost, turn down the temperature of the water! Virtually all modern water heaters have an adjustable thermostat which regulates the temperature of the water. If you turn the water down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, this will usually provide you with adequate hot water, and could save you save you some serious money. If you notice that the hot water is burning you in the shower, this is yet another reason to turn the temperature down.

Most of us don’t take showers when we’re asleep. Before you go to bed, turn the thermostat all the way down, or completely off, if your heater has that option. Unfortunately, if you shower in the morning, you may find yourself without hot water if you follow this tip. If you normally take a shower before you go to bed, then this tip can save you plenty of money. Remember that if you have a large tank water heater, it may take an hour or two to get back to normal temperatures, so be sure to think ahead.

If you have a large family, or use lots of hot water for some other reason, you may want to consider buying a tankless water heating system. These systems, as the name might suggest, don’t use tanks to store hot water. Instead, these devices are only active when water is flowing through them. So in other words, these systems give you instant hot water when you need it, and completely turn off when you aren’t using any hot water. Both electric and gas tankless water heating systems exist, but can be quite expensive to purchase and install. Over time, these tanks will save you money, but the upfront cost is still quite expensive, usually being in the hundreds of dollars.

If you own your own home and live in a sunny area, you may want to consider solar heating solutions. These are not solar electric panels, but rather solar thermal panels. These types of panels are much easier to fabricate, and thus, fairly cheap. Depending on where you live, solar heating solutions can pay for themselves fairly quickly. Believe it or not, but you don’t have to pay anyone to use the sun’s power! These systems are usually coupled with either gas or electric heating elements for night time use, and for cloudy days. Still, this is a very cost effective way to reduce your bills. Be sure to check out the U.S. Department of Energy’s website for more information.